size matters

Mary Trump just hit her crazy uncle Donald where it hurts the most

By · 38 comments

Mary Trump just hit her crazy Uncle Donald where it hurts the most: crowd size.

The one-term, twice-impeached, quadruply-indicted ex-president won the New Hampshire primary this week with 176,392 votes, or 54% of the electorate. Meanwhile, is last remaining opponent, Nikki Haley, won 140,288 votes, or 43% of the electorate.

Though technically the victor, a mere 11-point/36,104 vote difference is really not that impressive, especially for someone with as much name recognition, money, and institutional support as Trump.

(We should also note that Haley won 60% of independent voters, compared to Trump’s 38%, which could spell doom for him should advance to the general election.)

Also not impressive was how many people actually turned out to hear his victory speech in the Granite State. As usual, Trump bragged about how many supporters were there, but reports from people on the ground told a much different story.

Related:

The Trump White House was fueled by prescription drugs, shocking new report finds

A Department of Defense Inspector General report details rampant prescription drug abuse in the Trump Administration.

According to MSNBC contributor John Heilemann, the venue could hold up to 10,000 spectators, but there were “empty seats all over the place.” He estimated the it was “less than half filled” and that even on the ground level, closest to the stage, “you could see just seat after seat after seat, with no one in it.”

In the latest installment of her Substack newsletter, Mary talks at length about about her crazy uncle’s shrinking crowd sizes and the “embarrassing number of empty seats” at Tuesday night’s rally.

Correction: She doesn’t just talk about it. She has video to prove it.

The footage shows Trump talking before a half-empty auditorium with entire sections blacked out to make the room appear less sparse. Mary says this likely killed her uncle, since crowd size, particularly small crowd side, has “always been a trigger for Donald.”

“The issue of crowd size may seem trivial, but not if you know Donald,” she writes. “Crowd size is one of the key ways Donald measures success.”

C-SPAN footage also showed an empty auditorium.

“Small turnout, muted responses, and louder hecklers challenge him and stress him in a way few other things can,” Mary adds. “Huge crowds, and their violent energy, motivate him. They were a crutch. Without them, he loses an important method of deploying his message, and momentum.”

One only needs to look at the ex-president’s response to the historically low turnout at his inauguration in January 2017 as an example of what she’s talking about.

Trump was so bothered by it that he had then-White House press secretary Sean Spicer hold a special press conference to lie and say it was “the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period, both in person and around the globe!”

“The issue of crowd size may seem trivial, but not if you know Donald,” Mary writes. “Empty seats, low Republican voter turnout, and dropping enthusiasm are the reality of Donald’s campaign. The data show a growing number of Republicans—including, most recently Sen. Susan Collins of Maine—saying they will refuse to support Donald if he wins the nomination.”

Per Politico:

The data supports the idea that there are problems ahead for the former president. Even before the Iowa survey, a New York Times/Siena College poll found that — including independents who say they lean toward one party over the other — Biden had slightly more support among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents (91 percent) than Trump did among Republicans and GOP-leaning independents (86 percent).

That’s far from a majority of Republicans preparing to pass on Trump in November. But in a close election, it could be enough to tip the scales for Democrats. At a minimum, it is a major liability for the GOP should the party, as expected, push Trump through as its nominee.

Despite mounting evidence that he will be an incredibly weak candidate going into the general election, the Republican National Committee briefly floated the idea of formally declaring Trump the party’s 2024 presumptive nominee this week, more than a month ahead of Super Tuesday.

It withdrew the resolution yesterday, however, at the request of Trump himself, who said he’d like to satisfaction of defeating his former United Nations ambassador, who he has called “ungrateful” for running against him, at the primary ballot box.

As for Haley, she says she’s committed to staying in the race, even if the RNC and others would prefer she fade away. In a fundraising email this week, she wrote, “The RNC is leveraging the establishment to try and crown Trump the presumptive nominee. Well I have news for them: I’m in this to win it and I’m not going anywhere.”

Looks like we’re in for more mud-slinging and empty auditoriums, folx!

Related:

A new, deeply unflattering photo of Donald Trump has the internet howling

Even a former Monty Python star has weighed in with comment

Don't forget to share:

Help make sure LGBTQ+ stories are being told...

We can't rely on mainstream media to tell our stories. That's why we don't lock Queerty articles behind a paywall. Will you support our mission with a contribution today?

Once Monthly Annually

Cancel anytime · Proudly LGBTQ+ owned and operated